For years California voters have been nothing but compassionate towards the state’s homeless population, repeatedly voting to tax ourselves to provide more resources for affordable housing, mental health services, public transportation and addiction treatment facilities. In return, we’ve lost control of park space, rivers, public transit systems, downtown commercial hubs, and even residential neighborhoods. It seems today like we have somehow traded the California paradise we remember for something more akin to a zombie apocalypse movie.

And the problems we’ve been trying to solve are only getting worse.

Politicians, advocates for the homeless and the courts have to understand that compassion is a two-way street. Their institutional lack of empathy, care or concern for the residents who are forced to suffer the consequences, as well as pay the bills, for their failed programs is beyond appalling.

How about some concern for the elderly woman who wants to go for a walk without being punched in the face for no reason? Or the single mom who just wants to pump her own gas without being harassed and physically intimidated by a junkie? Or a kid who wants to ride his bike along the Santa Ana River, but can’t because of the hypodermic needles and human waste? Or the young family who has to turn their house into a fortress to keep transients from defecating on their doorstep?

The powers that be seem to have nothing but scorn for those people. They want you to shut up, keep paying your rising tax bill and check your privilege.

But I for one have had it with their faux compassion and moral superiority. It’s time that they take responsibility for the trainwreck that they and their disastrous policies created. It’s not compassionate to allow addicts and the mentally ill to live life on the streets, and it’s not compassionate to expect the public to deal with the dangerous situations this creates.

In just the last couple of weeks, we’ve learned the following:

Over the last six years the number of those living in the streets and shelters of the city of Los Angeles and most of the county surged 75 percent.

If you take out Los Angeles, national homelessness would have dropped last year for the first time since the recession, proving that the homeless crisis is either just a California problem — or that we’re attracting them from other parts of the nation.

After it was determined that December’s Skirball Fire, which destroyed six homes and damaged a dozen others in the process, was started by a fire at a homeless encampment in nearby brush, the Los Angeles Fire Department conducted a study which found nearly 200 similar encampments pose a high fire risk to their surrounding communities. The problematic encampments include some in Eagle Rock, Elysian Park near Dodger Stadium and the hills around the Hollywood Bowl.

Along the Santa Ana River, about 62 tons of debris and 400 pounds of “human waste” was removed from January 22 to January 26, in addition to 34 arrests.

In the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles, a 41-year-old transient was arrested Tuesday afternoon for sucker punching an 85-year-old grandma for no reason, leaving her with horrific injuries to her head and face.

In Van Nuys, a transient was arrested after he was caught breaking into a home, watching pornography and masturbating. According to police, the mother discovered and confronted the pervert, while her husband and son had to subdue him until the cops arrived.

LAPD Detective Michael O’Connor told the Daily News, “We’re in the third week of February, and just about all of our burglary arrests from the calendar year have been transient suspects … More of our suspects who are committing burglary and property crimes are transients. All you need is a rock to get inside a business. And what you stand to gain far exceeds your risk of getting caught. And even when you do get caught, the punishment is so minuscule, so it’s almost worth the risk.”

I could go on, but the paper would run out of ink.

If this is where “compassionate” policies have left us, maybe it’s time to try some ‘tough love’, instead.

John Phillips is a CNN political commentator and can be heard weekdays at 3 p.m. on “The Drive Home with Jillian Barberie and John Phillips” on KABC/AM 790.

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